Would someone draw a continent map for me?

[Magrathean]

Please? The map is for my current D&D campaign, which i'm also writing a novel about (i've got the first chapter done and the outlines of the second, third and fourth chapters). It's not the entire planet the campaign takes place on, just a portion of the continent where the first bit of the action happens. I have a VERY rough sketch of it which i hand-drew on a piece of paper during thermodynamics class (that class reinvented the word 'boring', believe me). I've attached it to this post.



I must clarify a few things. Perhaps one of the most important ones is that the scale is all wrong; i wrote down a number impulsively because i wanted to give it a "finished" look, but when i thought about the scale of things i realized that the distance between Sva Kihlek and Skypeay (in Vasara, the top-right kingdom) must be roughly 100 miles (go from there to calculate all other distances).

The latitude this continent is at is similar to that of Scandinavia / mid-northern Europe; Vasara is so far north that in the whole of the kingdom they get six months of daylight in summer and six months of darkness in winter, while Hoftz-Kunn (in Nidavellier, the kingdom just south of Vasara) gets 20-hour days in summer and 20-hour nights in winter.

I know that most of the kingdoms' names are missing and that i have very few towns, but if anyone is willing to make this map for me (i'll give you cookies! ) i'll send them an update with all the cities and all the names of the different places.

An important thing for this map is that there are large areas of largely-uninhabited, "wild" terrain. It's still a world ridden with horrible monsters; the gods still have occasional but earth-shattering fights against the primordials or among themselves; and it's been only seven centuries since the Great War in which Arkhosia and Bael Turath destroyed each other, and this continent was one the two empires had keen eyes on; as a result, there is a lot of uninhabited land and there are many ruins.

I'm aware that there is a norwegian city called Trondheim (not Throndheim), but the member of my D&D group who named the south-western kingdom in the map apparently misread the name. In any case, due to a change of plans the kingdom of Throndheim should not be a kingdom, but rather merely a mostly uninhabited region; nobody lives in those mountains because there is a red dragon (great wyrm age) where it says "great wyrm blah blah blah", and only the dwarven fortress Xanten stands proudly (the fortress belongs to the northeastern kingdom of Nidavellier).

Speaking of, that very dragon is the reason nobody from the northeastern tip of this continent has ventured southwest of the "Throndheim" mountains; anyone who dares explore that close to an evil great wyrm's lair inevitably dies a quick and usually painless death by incineration.

There are three elven kingdoms, two of which occupy the large forest K'zirmyjg. I just wanted to clarify the fact that the elves south of the forest fly different banners than the elves in the western bit of the forest or those in the eastern bit of it. The largest of these three kingdoms is called K'zim (as i said, i'll give the entire name catalog to the person who is so kind as to help me out with this map).

The dotted line represents a region nobody enters out of fear. In the Astral Sea, that region corresponds to an eladrin kingdom; in the mortal world, eladrin cities appear and disappear seemingly randomly in that region, and the eladrin have been known to kill all non-eladrin who trespass.

The small regions shaded blue (a big one just west of Hoftz-Kunn, a tiny one just southwest of Nidavellier, and two which are joined at the tips just north of the eladrin region) are lakes.

Some of the islands are inhabited; as such, they belong to the kingdoms near them. Again, this is not marked on the map because it is a very quick and very rough sketch, but i'll let you know which ones.

Obviously, i don't want the "you are here" sign (and all the signs explaining who lives where either) to appear on the map; they're just markers which are useful for the campaign.



I have no time constraints for it, since it's probably going to be a while before i finish the novel. However, it would be nice to be able to show the rest of the group a pretty version of the map (which i utterly failed at making with PhotoShop; today i learned that i have an awfully long way to go before i can make anything pretty with that program or any other graphics program, so i really appreciate all the effort and time it takes to make the awesome maps i've seen on this forum). If you want to make this map for me, i'll just ask you to keep me updated on your progress more or less regularly (not every day or anything, but i wouldn't like to go two or three months without knowing how it's turning out). I'd really appreciate that.



As for style, i'm thinking something like http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...?9985-Lykarnia (or perhaps http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...-Of-Sinisteria, but i'm more inclined towards the other choice). I'd also like kingdom boundaries to be clear (i.e. not too subtle) while avoiding having a rainbow-colored map, please.



As far as size goes, i'm thinking about roughly 1400x900 pixels (doesn't have to be exactly that width and height, but something similar): not so big that distances become hard to judge and the shape of the continent is lost, but big enough to be able to zoom in a little and look at any particular region in detail.



Thanks a ton once again to anyone who is willing to craft this bit of my world for me. As i already said, i understand the amount of hours and hard work this sort of commission requires.

[RecklessEnthusiasm]

Hey there slim, welcome to the guild.

I had nothing to do at work tonight, and I'd already bored myself half to death with my own battle mapping project, so I thought I'd give it a quick go. I've never tried mapping on the continent-scale before, so, you know... sorry? I've posted my first draft over in the Work in Progress continent/regional mapping forum.

I might have some more time to add more of the stuff you haven't marked, or maybe make a few changes, so feel free to post any updates/additional info in the WIP post I started over HERE.

[Magrathean]

Thank you very much, RecklessEnthusiasm (awesome username, by the way). I really appreciate this.

Mods, this request has been taken. Thank you.

[ravells]

Thanks for leting us know. Thread marked accordingly.